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TAKING QUESTIONS ONLY IN NEW YORK
April 4, 2008, 3:59 pm
Ask About So You Want to Be Vice
Painting New York With an Immigrant’s Brush Mass President?
By COREY KILGANNON Transit If Hillary Rodham Clinton is
Gene seeking the job, she might
Russianoff, want to heed the advice of
staff lawyer for the Nelson A. Rockefeller, the last
Straphangers Campaign, is New Yorker to have it. Sam
answering questions about Roberts explains in his weekly
improving New York City's podcast.
public transportation.
First Set of Answers, June 10 »
Second Set of Answers, June
11
Submit a Question »
Comment of the Moment
Bird Whisperer? When does this
nonsense stop?!? ”
— Capt. Concernicus
Polly Want a Conversation?
The watercolor “Liberty&ManhattanSkyline1″ by Katherine Dolgy Ludwig was chosen by the Bloomberg
administration to be used for invitations and programs for Immigrant Heritage Week, April 14-20.
Updated, 6:30 p.m. | On a 2006 visit to this country, Katherine Dolgy
Ludwig was riding her bicycle around Staten Island and sat down with a
sandwich on a dock overlooking New York Harbor.
Ms. Dolgy Ludwig was no poor immigrant sailing over in steerage — she is
an accomplished Canadian painter who has since returned here on a
fellowship — yet she felt as if she had seen New York for the first time and
experienced its welcome just like the huddled masses.
She pulled out her watercolor kit — three colors and some brushes in a
Welcome to City Room
worn Spider-Man lunch box — and started painting version after version
City Room® is a news blog of live reporting, features and reader
of the harbor scene: the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan shimmering in
conversations about New York City [Highlights]. Reader
the distance across the water. comments are moderated [Details]. There is no guarantee of
publication, and there may be delays, especially overnight and on
One of the small renderings was recently selected by the Mayor’s Office of weekends. We prefer comments with real names (or initials) and
Immigrant Affairs to represent Immigrant Heritage Week, which kicks off a valid e-mail address. Please stay on topic and avoid personal
attacks, profanity and SHOUTING. Send questions, suggestions
April 14 with free or inexpensive programs to celebrate the experiences or complaints by e-mail for prompt attention.
and contributions of immigrants in New York City.
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Brooklyn | The Bronx | Manhattan | Queens | Staten Island
The image is named “Liberty&ManhattanSkyline1″ and graces invitations
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and other materials to be used for the week. (The Daily News reported on Welcome: Your City, Your Morning Buzz
the selection today.) Room
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“This is the first view many immigrants saw of New York and it kind of Comment Moderation Policy Blogtalk
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symbolized the way New Yorkers have welcomed me every day since I’ve CITY ROOM ON THE WEB
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been here,” Ms. Dolgy Ludwig said in an interview on Thursday. Shared Items From Other Blogs
Since coming to New York last spring, she has painted hundreds of
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vibrant watercolor portraits of immigrants. She is hardly formal about it.
She takes her Spider-Man kit and hops on her folding bicycle and pedals
around the city asking people on the street to pose for a portrait. She has Recent Posts
been surprised that most people say yes, she said. June 12 Answers About Mass Transit, Part 3
0 comments Taking Questions: Gene Russianoff, staff lawyer
for the Straphangers Campaign, answers City
Ms. Dolgy Ludwig said her own move to New York last year helped her to
Room readers’ questions about improving New
sympathize with the plight of immigrants. York City’s public transportation.
June 12 Keep Your Jello Shot Away From My
She and her husband, Sam Ludwig, were living with their four teenage
0 comments MacBook
children near Toronto, but when she won a fellowship to paint in New Blogtalk: Bars with WiFi, a defense of Usenet,
York, she and her family decided she could not pass it up, she said. So she celebrity apartment hunting, bike-unfriendly
Ikea, crane neurosis, elevated Tom Ridge alert,
packed up a truck full of paintings and headed for New York City. But an
Coney Island raises, judicial pay and more New
American border official at the Peace Bridge, between Fort Erie, Ontario, York links.
and Buffalo, told her she that could not enter the country. June 12 Poll: Support for Gay Rights, and
1 comments Bloomberg for Governor
“Every time I visited the U.S., I’d just show my Canadian passport,” she A majority of voters supported a governor’s
said. order that agencies recognize same-sex
marriages performed elsewhere. And the mayor
But the border agent asked for a visa, and his resolve only stiffened when leads a list of choices for the next governor.
she told him about her fellowship, she said. She and her daughter Sofia June 12 Democrats Rally Around McMahon in
4 comments S.I. Race
were reduced to tears and tried several other border crossing before an
Democratic officials have rallied around
official finally offered Ms. Dolgy Ludwig a 10-day visa so she could try Councilman Michael E. McMahon in the race
getting proper visitor status. for Congress, but a lawyer who ran before,
Stephen A. Harrison, also wants the
Her fellowship imperiled, she put out word of her situation in the art nomination.
community, and letters of support poured in. She quickly sold enough June 12 Polly Want a Conversation?
5 comments Video: “I go to where the birds are in the city —
paintings to raise $6,000 to hire a lawyer and get a special artists visa,
it could be parks or bird sanctuaries or the zoo
known as an 01 Visa. or anything — and I talk to them,” says Stanley
Long.
Ms. Dolgy Ludwig had already enjoyed painting unlikely groups of people.
There were the police officers in a tough London precinct. There was the
nudist colony in Toronto, and the Playboy bunnies in Las Vegas. In New
York, she began painting sixth-grade classes in public schools, and
religious groups including a convent of nuns and worshiping Hindus,
Orthodox Jews and Arab Muslims. These will be exhibited in a show
during Immigrant Heritage Week called “Sacred Spaces: FaithPainting in
Brooklyn” at A.I.R. Gallery in Chelsea, where her fellowship is based. In
gratitude she also painted many of the donors and supporters and has
organized a show at he gallery on April 17 called
“EveryOneWhoHelpedMeGetMy01Visa.”
Ms. Dolgy Ludwig said the stimulating art scene in New York has ignited
her creativity, from the Thursday night openings in Chelsea, to the
discussions with other creative people, to the New Yorkers willing to stop
and have their portrait painted on the spot.
“I’ve engaged with so many people on such an intimate level here that it’s
really made my work electric,” she said. “There’s no place like New York
for an artist. There’s just an ongoing cultural discussion that cannot
happen in other places. You have so many different types of people and
they all accept each other. I’ve only been here a year and I feel like I’ve
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Painting New York With an Immigrants Brush - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog 06/12/2008 12:11 PM
they all accept each other. I’ve only been here a year and I feel like I’ve
already lived 4,000 lives in New York. I came here knowing nobody, and
now I know hundreds of people.”
We Want Your Videos
Guillermo Linares, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant
We invite readers to submit video clips to City
Affairs, said that Ms. Dolgy Ludwig was proof that “immigrants continue Room. Whether you have scenes from your
to have an opportunity to come to the U.S. and share their talent,” and neighborhood, or eyewitness video of breaking
that she was selected because she helps “highlight the cultural news, we really want to see it.
Details and Instructions »
contributions that immigrants bring with them to share with all New
Yorkers.”
Feeds
Mr. Linares said 3 million New Yorkers, or 40 percent of the city’s
population, are foreign-born. The heritage week – which will have roughly
130 events, compared to the 50 events at last year’s version — will include
film screenings, book readings, children’s workshops and cross-cultural
dialogues. There is even a fire safety seminar being given by Police and nytimes.com/tmagazine
fire Department officials for Arab-speaking residents in Brooklyn.
The impressionistic style of the week’s signature image,
“Liberty&ManhattanSkyline1,” is typical of Ms. Dolgy Ludwig’s
spontaneous and emotional approach to portraiture. The huddled mass of
buildings rising up out of the harbor seems as much a state of mind rather
than a physical place. The hard-edged buildings have gone soft and fuzzy, Ali Lohan channeling Blair Waldorf
wobbling over the blue harbor and seem to welcome the viewer like an Also in T Magazine:
Where Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon got married
oasis wobbling in the distance. Very | Paris Hilton
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Government & Politics, Cultural Affairs, Immigration, Staten Island, arts, Michael R. Bloomberg
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1 comment so far...
1. April 6th, I love Katherine Dolgy-Ludwig’s painting
2008 LIBERTY&MANHATTANSKYLINE1. It is one of the most joyful
12:41 am paintings I have ever seen. It sings of light, and promise and joy. It
makes one feel that the hope that America symbolizes to the
immigrant is finally within reach. It lies just across the expanse of
white (the harbour) and you feel you can reach across the painting
and touch the city and feel its vibe. Congratulations to the Mayor’s
office for choosing such an optimistic work when so many works of
art today offer the viewer only dark violence and sardonic pessimism.
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Painting New York With an Immigrants Brush - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog 06/12/2008 12:11 PM
— Posted by Barbara Mitchell
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